/dev/nvidia* What does it do?

[mafiageek]

Hi i bet this question has been asked before.

What does /dev/nvidia* do?
And can you use this interface for anything other than x window system?

Cheers

[atriq]

There's an operating system concept known as "Everything's a File."
Linux abides by this, as well; /dev/nvidia* are links to your graphics card.

I'm sure it's possible to make something to communicate with it, but you would need to know how to communicate with it. In X, the graphics driver handles that.